This Is A Huge Weekend For Scottish International Football

TODAY, we are in arguably the most-important weekend of this year for Scottish football.

Our Men's team entertain Cyprus at Hampden tonight, while tomorrow, the Women take on the Auld Enemy, in Nice, in the opening game of their first World Cup finals campaign. For the Men, it is perhaps imperative that they build on the feel-good factor of Stevie Clarke's appointment to succeed Alex McLeish – while it goes without saying, any win over any England team is welcome.

Andy Robertson will lead Scotland tonight

It will be interesting to see how Clarke tinkers with what is by and large the same squad as McLeish utilised. In all honesty, there were no players not making themselves available to big Eck whom Clarke could have turned to. We have some good players, but, aside from skipper Andy Robertson, we have no really great players at the moment; and, in all honesty, Robertson is not yet challenging Eric Caldow for the number three shirt in my all-time Scotland team.

I suppose the big question we await answering is – has David Marshall been brought back to bring some experience to the squad, or will he displace Scott Bain between the sticks? A supplementary question is: in bringing-in players with whom he has worked, Clarke is following established practice for new international managers, but, can the likes of Stuart Findlay and Eamonn Brophy make the step up from Kilmarnock in the SPFL to the international arena?

It helps that Clarke's opener as boss is against the men from the Mediterranean island. But, while the Tartan Army foot soldiers might well still consider Cyprus as one of those diddy European teams a Scotland team comprising the first 11 guys into the Horseshoe Bar this morning, the truth is, Cyprus has been rising through the UEFA rankings almost as quickly as Scotland has fallen.

Colin Stein scoring one of his four goals against Cyprus at Hampden in 1969

Back in November, 1968, we went to Nicosia and pumped them 5-0 in a World Cup qualifier. Doubles from Alan Gilzean and Colin Stein and one from Bobby Murdoch. Six months later, in the return at Hampden, six months later, it was 8-0. Stein scored four, Eddie Gray, Billy McNeill, Willie Henderson and Tommy Gemmell got the others.

Our only other matches against the Cypriots came in another World Cup qualifying campaign, that for Italia '90. In the first game, in Limassol, in February, 1989, it was almost a case of: “hold the back page,” so deep into time added-on did Richard Gough score his second goal of the game, to give us a 3-2 win. Mo Johnston had opened the scoring for us about an hour and a half before Gough closed it, then we fell 2-1 behind before pulling through.

It was only a little easier in the second game, at Hampden, in the April. Again wee Mo gave us the lead, only for the visitors to level just after the hour. However, they had barely stopped celebrating before Ally McCoist grabbed what proved to be the winner.

Back in 1969, Scotland was arguably a top 10 European nation, we were certainly a top 16, while Cyprus were down among the dead men such as Luxembourg and Iceland we were expected to beat easily.

If, by 1989 our star had waned somewhat, we were regular World Cup final tournament regulars, Italia '90 would be our fifth successive final appearance, and if the arrival on the international scene of the likes of San Marino, Andorra and the Faroe Islands had helped bump Cyprus up the rankings, for all we found them difficult to knock over, it would still have been a seismic shock had they beaten us.

It will not be a great surprise if the improving Cypriots beat us tonight. It will certainly be a set-back to Clarke and the new regime, but, I doubt if the Daily Record and The Sun will be calling for the new manager's head.

I believe, however, while we will have our difficulties tonight, we will win.

I ALSO believe we can win in Nice tomorrow. And, would that not be a marvellous way to celebrate manager Shelley Kerr's MBE in the Birthday Honours list – in which my contribution to sports-writing and blogging has again been shamefully overlooked.

She is now Michelle Kerr MBE

I just have this sneaky feeling the BBC's shameless hyping of “The Lionesses” just might come back and bite them. Yes, England will start as favourites, but, I get the impression they are a team on the wane, and while they crushed us the last time the nations met, in the European Championships two years ago, we were woefully under-strength that night. We have improved since then, England have, at best flat lined.

It's like going back to the 1960s and 1970s, if you were picking a composite team from the two squads, Scotland would perhaps have as many outfield players as England. Girls such as Jenny Beattie, Kim Little, Caroline Weir and Erin Cuthbert are as good, and better even than their English counterparts.

My normal view of a clash with the Auld Enemy is: if their good players play well and so do ours, they will probably win. But, if our good players play well, and theirs don't, we will shock them. Let's hope it's a case of the latter tomorrow night.

France's Wendie Renard

Mind you, I enjoyed watching the French girls beat South Korea in last night's opener. They played some terrific football, of a standard some of our Premiership clubs would struggle to replicate. I did like that big French centre back, Wendie Renard, six foot one inch tall and absolutely focussed and intense. Not a woman to whom one would take home a broken pay poke.

Their skipper, Amandine Henry, obviously no relation to the blessed Thierry, is one heck of a player, as is their centre forward Eugénie Le Sommer. Yes, the hostesses will take a bit of beating. And, of course, we still await the arrival of the other big guns, Germany, Netherlands, Japan and the USA.

I believe the girls will get out of their group, but, how much further they go is an unknown.